


My Inspiration

by DarthSuki



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feels, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, LIKE LITERALLY SPOILERS HERE TREAD LIGHTLY, M/M, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Reader-Insert, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-15 09:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19612024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthSuki/pseuds/DarthSuki
Summary: The room, except for the muted sound of your choked-back sobs, is silent. The Exarch too, is silent.But, slowly, you feel arms around your form. You feel pressure and warmth as the man returns your embrace, slowly pressing his arms around your body until the grip is just as tight as your own, until it’s so hard that you can barely even breath and it hardly even matters to you.You feel him.You remember him.





	My Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a request made on my FFXIV writing blog. If you would like to submit a request or check out my other related work, [go check it out here!](https://finalfantasyxivwritings.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Seriously, I want to write all of your ideas for this beautiful expansion. It's!! So!! Perfect!!

It’s not until it’s just you and the Crystal Exarch alone in the Ocular that the two of you have any time to talk. Even then, your mind is scarcely afforded enough time to process the truth of the man’s identity beneath the cowl. The shock has seeped deep into your bones, leaving your mind and heart both in but a state best described as bittersweet wonder. Confirmation to the desperate question that lingered long in the back of your head since being summoned to the First-

-but confirmation in turn that, if fate hadn’t played out as it did, the reunion would only have been but a blissful blip of time along the river of your life. But one moment of happiness to be swept away by the cruel hand you’ve long been dealt with as the Warrior of Light and Darkness both. 

It makes your chest fill with rapture and dread and stress and maddening joy beyond all joy. A whirlwind of soulful emotions that you’ve but barely scratched as you stand before him, but many days after that tumultuous moment which left your soul satisfied and yet wanting in the knowledge that _he_ was alive, _he_ was well, that _he_ missed you as much, if not more, than you had missed _him_.

So what are you to do when you stand before him, the mask dropped at last, able to take in his identity with breathless awe?

Hot, wet tears begin to fill your eyes before you can even attempt to consider your options.

And soon, your voice follows, unhindered by shame and stifling thoughts that keep you frozen to the floor at your feet. 

“...Good morning, G’raha Tia,” the words fill the air, softly, and you would think them too quiet to hear if not for the way the man’s expression shifts. 

The way his eyes seem to gleam as if with wetness, the way his lips part as though you’d stolen the air from his lungs. For a moment he is a vision of vulnerable shock. The Exarch’s cheeks fill with pink and his mouth moves with no words falling out--though he’s had a century to prepare, it seems but such a simple word as his own _name_ falling from your lips is but enough to leave him all the same as you are.

When he catches himself, the Seeker finally smiles. It’s a wide, honest, warm look on his face, and it harkens back to the many times you’d catch the same look upon a discovery at the tower, each room uncovered and each floor fought with sacrifice. You see how the glimmer grows in his eyes and, at last a bounty of tears roll down his face in thick rivers of emotions that swirl behind his ruby eyes.

 _Misery_ and _relief_ and _fear_ and _joy_ and **_loneliness_**.

All of it unleashed, a flood of sensations that mimic the way the tears drip from his chin, the tears he makes no move to wipe away or hide from you.

“It has been long since I’ve ever heard someone call me by that name,” he whispers. “...I had almost forgotten what it sounded like on your voice.”

A moment passes and he is reaching out for you, hand of crystal lifting into the air in front of his body, fingers outstretched as if to beckon you close. To touch you.

To feel your realness, at last, as a friend than as a stranger.

The Exarch must find himself again, because just as you’re witnessing this miracle of a man reach for you he suddenly snatches his hand back, pulling it quickly to his side as if to atone for a mistake.

No.

By virtue of seeing the man’s fleeting guilt for simply wanting to _touch_ you, you feel a surge of passion unlike anything that’s ever filled your chest. With fire licking at your soul you step forward, sudden and careless and unbidden to any thought or caution that may scream in the back of your mind.

You step to the man and throw your arms around him. The heat of the Seeker’s body presses against your chest and arms and heart and _everywhere_ , a solid presence that you had feared been lost forever. _Again_. You clutch him tight against your body, as if to will fate itself to steel him away from you for a third time--you would raise sword and shield, bow and lance, rod and tome and whatever else in between if it meant keeping him here beside you, keeping _G’raha Tia_ with you.

You had faced light and dark, gods and primals, and not a single being would keep you from your dear friend any longer.

The Exarch is frozen in your grip. You can feel his halted breath, his stilled body, his wide gaze of shock.

“If there is nobody else to remember who you are-” you feel a sob at the back of your throat, tears burning in your eyes as you shut them tight and hold the man ever tighter. “Then _I_ will remember it! I will say it! Every morning and every night and every hour in between--G’raha Tia, _G’raha Tia_ , **_G’raha Tia_** -” The world is bright and soft and burning. “-I will never let anyone or anything take you from me again. I will rip apart time and space and the seven hells if it means keeping you from leaving.”

The room, except for the muted sound of your choked-back sobs, is silent. The Exarch too, is silent. 

But, slowly, you feel arms around your form. You feel pressure and warmth as the man returns your embrace, slowly pressing his arms around your body until the grip is just as tight as your own, until it’s so hard that you can barely even breath and it hardly even matters to you.

You _feel_ him.

You _remember_ him.

Faintly, you hear a whisper. It’s so soft that it’s hard to place, that it may even be but a figment of your rushed thoughts and pounding heart, but the sound brings but a burning joy to your very soul.

“Thank you,” the words are wet with tears and happiness without measure. “Thank you so much, my dearest friend. My Warrior of Light. _My inspiration._ ”


End file.
